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After having gone some years without contributing to Friday Book Report—and learning that apparently all the old postings are lost in the caverns of the internet—I find myself in a place and time to begin thinking outloud again.

In the manner incoming governments establish “improved” calendars with new dating systems for their citizens, causing confusion and sowing the seeds of the next overthrow, we’re adopting a New Style, beginning FBR at the beginning.

A fresh start. Number 1. A new style.

And, regarding a new style, I’ve begun a kind of fresh way of looking at what I do. Maybe this happens after writing a hundred books and questioning what for. Maybe it’s just that one has stories that have to come out. Maybe it’s simply getting older, wanting to write more slowly and consciously, while being a bit more annoyed with oneself about that ever-growing and still invisible stack of books that aren’t getting written.

Whatever it is, having been since the beginning under contract (I am still, and will be for years), I’m casting out in different directions and have started to write some small books that I’ve wanted to get to for years. This is a speculative idea and far from foolproof. No one is interested in them, not yet, maybe never. And finding time while still heavily bound will be a trick. But the fact remains that among the piles of unfinished writing (and books by others I want to read) on my desk, I’ve started to brush away the crumbs and reveal the underlying grain of the wood.

For the next year or so, I’ll be juggling some big projects with some discrete little gifts. This last is an optimistic word. They are only gifts if they’re given, and maybe only if they’re received. I have no idea yet that they will be transferred from my desk to the reader’s hands. But that’s a bit of a second-hand matter. I’m going to write them. That’s the main thing. After twenty-five years, this is a new style for me.